of
other things. At any rate, no sound was heard for long endless minutes.
Then he said,--'Phillis! did we not make you happy here? Have we not
loved you enough?'

She did not seem to understand the drift of this question; she looked
up as if bewildered, and her beautiful eyes dilated with a painful,
tortured expression. He went on, without noticing the look on her face;
he did not see it, I am sure.

'And yet you would have left us, left your home, left your father and
your mother, and gone away with this stranger, wandering over the
world.' He suffered, too; there were tones of pain in the voice in
which he uttered this reproach. Probably the father and daughter were
never so far apart in their lives, so unsympathetic. Yet some new
terror came over her, and it was to him she turned for help. A shadow
came over her face, and she tottered towards her father; falling down,
her arms across his knees, and moaning out,--

'Father, my head! my head!' and then slipped through his
quick-enfolding arms, and lay on the ground at his feet.

I shall never forget his sudden look of agony while I live; never! We
raised her up; her colour had strangely darkened; she was insensible. I
ran through the back-kitchen to the yard pump, and brought back water.
The minister had her on his knees, her head against his breast, almost
as though she were a sleeping child. He was trying to rise up with his
poor precious burden, but the momentary terror had robbed the strong
man of his strength, and he sank back in his chair with sobbing breath.

'She is not dead, Paul! is she?' he whispered, hoarse, as I came near
him. I, too, could not speak, but I pointed to the quivering of the
muscles round her mouth. Just then cousin Holman, attracted by some
unwonted sound, came down. I remember I was surprised at the time at
her presence of mind, she seemed to know so much better what to do than
the minister, in the midst of the sick affright which blanched her
countenance, and made her tremble all over. I think now that it was the
recollection of what had gone before; the miserable thought that
possibly his words had brought on this attack, whatever it might be,
that so unmanned the minister. We carried her upstairs, and while the
women were putting her to bed, still unconscious, still slightly
convulsed, I slipped out, and saddled one of the horses, and rode as
fast as the heavy-trotting beast could go, to Hornby, to find the
doctor there, and bring